While living with my husband these long and lovely years, I've been developing a theory about Egyptian mummies. My research began when my husband and I began to share the same bed. When I was single I made my bed everyday. I liked it to look really beautiful. Clean sheets, poofy pillows, everything tucked in and straight, topped by a comfy comforter. I was able to lie down on my back at night with my hands folded across my chest, and wake up in the morning in the same position, without a wrinkle. (The bed, not my face.)

Peter is a kicker, a thrasher and a burrower. When we were first married, I offered to get him a box of wood chips or straw so that he could dig himself a proper nest. For the sake of our nuptial bliss, we nixed that idea, but we still suffer from a strange phenomenon most nights. I wake up in the morning with my side of the bed relatively intact. His side is a tangle of untucked fitted sheets, mattress pads and whatnot, pulled back, tangled, inside out, almost down to the bedframe. Once the bed clothes are awry, in the depths of sleep he seems to be clawing at the carpet, the curtains, the wallpaper, or whatever else he can grab onto.

Maybe this is a condition contracted from overwork. Something similar may have affected the Egyptian royalty. After a hard day designing pyramids in the hot sun, Egyptian men flopped into bed, exhausted. Pretty soon they were tossing and turning, shifting and kicking until they tangled themselves up in their sheets and died before their wives could save them. I think that's where mummies actually came from.

I want to help modern people who suffer from this disorder. I am pondering a design for sheets and blankets that slip over the whole bed like one of those cloth towel dispensers in public restrooms. There could be a crank at the foot of the bed which could move the whole business over every couple of days to make a fresh bed. Maybe they could pass through a contraption in the floor for automatic washing and drying, ala Rube Goldberg. Lots of pulleys and whistles.

Certain attachments could be included, not just for the sake of people who thrash, but people who start out with their head on a pillow, and wake up the next day with their face where there toes should be, and their heels cooling where their head was. (My husband woke up in that predicament as a teenager.) There could be some sort of straps to secure the person to the bed -- but then you're getting into equipment used by mad scientists who perform diabolical experiments on people. I guess it's a lousy idea after all.

I don't know if I can help my husband and other thrashers like him, but archaeologists might appreciate the insight.

I've been wondering if sleeping in a big box of woodchips or shredded newspaper might be easier than trying to make the bed everyday. At least it would eliminate the problem of "somebody" stealing all the blankets, and it could prevent the accidental wrapping of my very own King Tut wannabe. What was that saying about being as snug as a bug in a rug? No thanks!